Trying to survive post-war Japan, Kawada (Noboru Ando) and Tsukada (Asao Koike) are caught by the military stealing copper wire. While Kawada is arrested and goes to prison, Tsukada escapes and starts a gang with the money he’s made. As he suffers the cruel attention of Warden  Hannya (Tomisaburo Wakayama), Kawada dreams of getting out of prison and the revenge he must take.

Directed by Tai Kato, this was followed in the same year by a sequel, Choeki juhachi-nen: Kari shutsugoku. Noburo Ando volunteered for a suicide frogmen unit during World War II, but that ended before he could give his life. In 1952, he formed his own Yakuza family, the Ando-gumi, which had three hundred members at one point. He was sent to jail for six years after sending a hitman to kill a rival and when he got out, he dissolved the gang and went into acting.

He said, “In Japanese, the only difference between yakuza and yakusha — an actor — is one hiragana character. All yakuza have to be actors to survive.” He was also a singer and played himself in movies about his life, but American audiences probably know him best for New Battles Without Honor and Humanity and Graveyard of Honor.

As Kawada comes to terms with what the war has made him do, he rises to the defense of the underdog in jail life, all while Tsukada is the opposite, now firmly embracing power and ruthlessness.

Art imitates life, as Kawada also feels that he must atone for sending the brother of Hisako (Hiroko Sakuramachi) on a suicide mission during the war. Noburo Ando left prison to meet with the mother of the man he had killed and asked for forgiveness. In this movie, he tries for the same by attempting to mentor her brother Shuichi (Masaomi Kondo) when he is placed in the same cell.

When Kawada learns that his former partner hasn’t opened a market to help people but instead a brothel — and caused the suicide of a former lover — he must leave behind prison and the mentorship of the Yakuza elder Osugi (Michitaro Mizushima).

This is a movie that shows just how bad Japan was at the close of the war and how it had to both forgive itself and find a new path, even if it was one person doing so.

The Radiance Films blu ray of Eighteen Years In Prison has extras like an appreciation by critic and programmer Tony Rayns, a visual essay on Japanese prison films by author Tom Mes, a trailer, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Ivo Smits and an archival interview with Noboru Ando by Mark Schilling. It’s a limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings.

You can order this from MVD.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Zontar, the Thing from Venus was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, September 7, 1968 at 11:20 p.m., Saturday, April 18, 1970 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, November 27, 1971 at 1:00 a.m.

Zontar, the Thing from Venus is one of the many remakes of Roger Corman movies — this one is It Conquered the World — directed by Larry Buchanan.

This starts at a dinner party. That’s where NASA scientist Dr. Keith Ritchie (Anthony Huston) reveals to Dr. Curt Taylor (John Agar) that he’s been secretly meeting with an alien from Venus named Zontar who is coming to solve all of Earth’s issues. A dinner party would not seem to be the time to do this.

Zontar ends up being a three-eyed, bat-winged, skeletal black creature and I don’t want to be one of those people that judges people by their outside appearances, but I don’t think Zontar has any intention of making the world a better place.

Not even when Zontar starts possessing people with lobster injecto-pods does Ritchie think this friend is a horrific alien monster. No, it takes his wife Martha (Patricia De Laney) dying before he does something about it. Scientists are really smart and also so dumb.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Son of Godzilla was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, February 23, 1974 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, August 16, 1975 at 11:30 p.m.

Toho’s A-list was all working on King Kong Escapes while Godzilla got what was left behind, just like what happened with Ebirah, Horror of the Deep. It’s the first movie where Godzilla’s son Minilla appears, a character created not for kids but for young Japanese women on dates who adore kawaii — or cute — versions of characters.

Minilla is discovered within his egg buried deep in the Earth, his crying disrupting a weather control system — well, that seems like a bad idea — that scientists are setting up on Monster Island, of all places. Some giant bugs called Kamacuras (Gimantis in America) try to eat the egg and Godzilla shows up to save the child and decimate those annoying insects.

Minilla grows to half our hero’s size and while he can only blow smoke rings, he’s still willing to fight a giant spider named Kumonga to save some humans, who respond to this kindness by freezing the island so that they can escape. Godzilla says, “Screw this,” and goes to sleep.

When this was released in Italy, it was titled Il Ritorno di Gorgo (The Return of Gorgo), which is an absolute slap to to the green face of Godzilla, seeing as how Gorgo is an absolute ripoff of the original film.

September Drive-In Super Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA on September 27 and 28, 2024. Admission is still only $15 per person each night (children 12 and under free with adult) and overnight camping is available (breakfast included) for an additional $15 per person. You can buy tickets at the show but get there early and learn more here.

The features for Friday, September 27 are The Raven, The Terror, The Little Shop of Horrors and Attack of the Crab Monsters. Saturday, September 28 has The Beyond, Opera, Cemetery Man and A Blade In the Dark.

The fifth of Roger Corman’s Poe movies, this was written by Richard Matheson and based on the poem “The Raven.” It has an astounding cast with Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff — who was also in the 1935 adaption — as sorcerers locked in magical combat with one another.

In the book The Raven, Matheson said, “After I heard they wanted to make a movie out of a poem, I felt that was an utter joke, so comedy was really the only way to go with it.”

As Dr. Erasmus Craven (Price) pines for his lost wife Lenore (Hazel Court, The Man Who Could Cheat Death), he is visited by a raven that he helped to transform back into the human form of Dr. Bedlo (Lorre). Now, Bedlo wants revenge on the man who turned him into a beast — Dr. Scarabus (Karloff) — and gets Craven to come with him, claiming that he’s seen Lenore’s ghost in his enemy’s castle. Along for the ride are Craven’s daughter Estelle and Bedlo’s son Rexford, who is a very young Jack Nicholson.

It all turns out that Lenore is alive and faked her death to become Scarabus’ mistress and doesn’t even bat an eye when the evil wizard tortures her daughter. Of course, a duel between magicians is the only way this can all end.

Lorre was given to improv, which Price grew to enjoy, Nicholson loved and Karloff hated. Between that and the goofy Latin phrases the magicians say when they cast spells, this movie always makes me laugh.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Robert Conrad co-wrote and co-directed this movie with director Alfredo Zacarías (Demonoid) and writer Edward Di Lorenzo (Lady Frankenstein). Yes, that’s an odd group to make a movie, but Conrad had already been to Mexico once before to make a musical with Zacarías, Ven a cantar conmigo (Come, Sing With Me).

Chris Barrett (Conrad), Josh Racker (Roy Jenson) and Taye Brown (Jan-Michael Vincent, making his movie debut) are set to hang in Texas when they’re rescued by a Mexican rancher named Valdez (Manuel López Ochoa). He wants them to help him find gold that belongs to France in the middle of his country finally fighting back against their rulers.

What emerges is a movie that wants to be an Italian Western made by Americans and Mexicans. It was released in Italy as Non c’è scampo per chi tradiscei (There Is No Escape for Those Who Cheat) which pretty much gives away the shock ending, as — spoiler — Conrad gets blown away, Vincent does too before Roy Jenson says “Goodbye, Mexicans” before they all get shoved out a window with nooses around their necks. All because they had a moment of weakness and allowed a French general to survive.

Shot in Mexico in 1966 during a hiatus from star Conrad’s series The Wild Wild West, The Bandits used a lot of the crew from that program, including cinematographer Ted Voigtlander (who also shot The Changeling), co-editor Grant K. Smith, producers James M. George and Harry Harvey Jr., and stunt director Whitey Hughes. It would go unreleased until 1979 when Lone Star Films got it into theaters in 1979. It was also re-released by Flora Releasing and 21st Century.

You can watch this on the Cave of Forgotten Films.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

You gotta love this Amazon description, which assumes that we know who these fellows are:

“FBI agent Brad joins Tony and Nick, the self-styled supermen who battle crime wearing bullet-proof super-suits. They are on a case involving radioactive counterfeit money and people who can be broken down into precious jewels. With some really nice stunts and awesome kung fu, gimmick weapons & gymnastics!”

I mean, I wasn’t interested and then you hit me with gymnastics?

Director Gianfranco Parolini is better known for his Sabata films, as well as God’s Gun. For this movie, he went to Yugoslavia to get the adventures of these three heroes to the big screen. And it wasn’t easy — for one stunt, actor Aldo Canti jumped out of a 20 feet high window, hit a trampoline and then jumped into a truck moving at full speed.

After this movie, the Supermen went around the world: Japan in Three Supermen at Tokyo, Africa in Three Supermen in the Jungle, Hong Kong in the xenophobically titled Supermen Against the Orient,  and seemingly have run out of countries, they went back in time to the wild west in The Three Supermen in the West.

Tony is played by Tony Kendall, who is also in The Whip and the Body and Return of the Blind Dead, as well as the Kommisar X series of films. And Nick, another of the Supermen, was played by actor/stuntman Aldo Canti, a real-life thief with strong mob ties that was released from jail just to appear in this film. He was replaced by Sal Borgese in the other films in this series before coming back for the Turkish co-production Supermenler in 1979.